More than three-quarters of California’s population are now living under the harshest lockdowns in the US, as Covid-19 cases hit record levels in the country’s most populous state.
Regional stay-at-home restrictions went into effect for nearly 23 million residents in southern California and 4.4 million residents in a large swath of the Central Valley on Sunday night, as ordered by the state governor, Gavin Newsom. The orders take effect on a region-by-region basis when hospital intensive care unit beds in the region dropped to below 15%.
The southern California region and the San Joaquin Valley region joined five counties in the Bay Area region whose local leaders pre-emptively ordered its 6 million residents to enter lockdown starting at 10pm on Sunday. “We cannot wait until after we have driven off the cliff to pull the emergency brake,” said the Santa Clara county health officer, Dr Sara Cody.
The restrictions, which require people to stay home and minimize contact with other households, will remain in place for at least three weeks, covering the Christmas holiday.
All retail stores can stay open, although at 20% capacity, along with outside spaces such as parks and beaches, but restaurants, bars, hair and nail salons and tattoo shops are required to close.
California reported 24,735 positive cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the average to 21,924 cases a day. The state had a 10.5% seven-day positivity rate, meaning that in the past week, one in 10 Californians tested for coronavirus came back with positive results. Newsom noted that the rate of growth on the state’s positivity rate was “very, very acute” – just 30 days ago, the state’s positivity rate was at 3.4%. Health officials believe the numbers will only get worse before they get better.
“We know that those cases that potentially occurred around people’s dinner tables, activities, plans, travel through Thanksgiving are going to show up right about now. We’re going to be seeing that for many days to come,” said Dr Mark Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services. “We believe that the levels of transmission that we’ve been reporting so far will likely continue to go up some because of those activities.”
Across the US, 101,487 people were being treated in hospital with Covid-19 on Sunday, according to the Covid Tracking Project, and an additional 1,138 deaths were recorded.
California has recorded more than 1.3m cases, setting a new daily record on Sunday with 30,075. Hospitalizations have topped 10,000 in a 72% increase over the past 14 days, with more than 2,300 patients in ICU care.
The 11-county southern California region, which includes Los Angeles and San Diego, had only 10.9% of ICU beds available, the state reported on Monday. The figure was at 6.3% for the San Joaquin Valley, a dozen counties in the Central Valley and rural areas of the Sierra Nevada. Together the two regions are home to more than half of California’s 40 million population.
“Surging cases and hospitalizations are not letting up,” said Dr Salvador Sandoval, the public health officer for the city of Merced. “I can’t emphasise this enough – everyone must take personal steps to protect themselves and protect others.”
The surge in cases has overrun the hospital capacities of more rural regions in particular, such as San Benito county, which is included in the San Joaquin Valley region and is under lockdown. “Our only hospital in San Benito county is completely full,” said Dr David Ghilarducci, the San Benito county public health officer. “This is an alarming situation that could get much worse. We can only get through this if we work together. Please follow our advice to keep yourself, your family and your neighbors safe.”
The other three regions – Greater Sacramento, northern California and San Francisco Bay area – ranged between 20% to 28% in capacity. But health officers in five of the Bay Area’s 11 counties adopted the state stay-at-home order for San Francisco, Santa Clara, Marin, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, as well as the city of Berkeley, which has its own public health department, saying they could not afford to wait.
“Our biggest fear all along – that we won’t have a bed for you or your mother or your grandmother or grandfather when they get sick – is the reality we’ll be facing unless we slow the spread,” said London Breed, San Francisco’s mayor.
The Bay Area order will last at least through 4 January, a week longer than the state timeline.
The new shutdowns were a gut-wrenching move for small businesses. Michelle Saunders James was in tears on Friday at the thought of closing down her Oakland nail salon just five weeks after reopening.
“We wear [face] shields. We take temperatures. We do everything we are told to do so everyone feels safe, including our staff and team,” she told KGO-TV. “So I don’t understand why it’s not enough, and I’m terribly sad and afraid.”
“We know that these various restrictions are a hardship for people,” Ghaly, California’s secretary of health and human services, said on Monday. “It’s not what we expected at this time of year, but we know some of them are required to make sure we get through the surge as quickly as possible and in saving as many lives and in preventing as many infections as we possibly can.”
Other states are also struggling. In Arizona on Saturday, the top public health official reported a near-record of nearly 6,800 new infections, telling people to wear masks around anyone outside their household, “even those you know and trust”.
“We must act as though anyone we are around may be infected,” Dr Cara Christ wrote on Twitter.
On Sunday, Virginia reported a record number of cases for a second straight day, with 3,880. Virginia has reported a total 255,053 cases, with 4,200 deaths. Iowa saw an additional 35 deaths on Monday, continuing its high level of deaths during the pandemic.
Despite the grim outlook, however, hope is on the horizon. A vaccine developed by Pfizer could be given emergency use approval this week. Newsom annouced on Monday that California is preparing to receive more than 2m doses in December.
On Sunday Dr Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser to the federal Operation Warp Speed vaccine development programme, told CNN’s State of the Union that in his opinion, the vaccine’s effectiveness could last for “many, many years”, with older people and others more vulnerable requiring a booster every three to five years.
Slaoui also said it was not known if vaccinated persons could spread the virus, and said there may be an initial indication on that sometime in February or March.
Slaoui added the continuing unknowns made it important for people to remain cautious and take safeguards to protect themselves and others against Covid-19. Once 70 to 80% of the population was vaccinated, he said, “the virus will go down”.
On NBC’s Meet the Press, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, Dr Deborah Birx, said: “The vaccine’s critical. But it’s not going to save us from this current surge. Only we can save us from this current surge.”